The better angels of our nature : a history of violence and humanity
This volume argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short, and suggests explanations why this has happened. The author maintains that the key to explaining the decline of violence is to understand the "inner demons" that incline us toward violence and the "better angels" that steer us away. Thanks to the spread of government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize with others, debunk toxic ideologies, and deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence. The book is divided into 2 parts. The first part is an effort to describe a broad sweep of human history from prehistoric societies to the present, arguing for a progressive though intermittent decline in violence in human societies. The second part is an effort to understand the underpinnings of the decline in violence in terms of human psychological processes
History
1 online resource (xxviii, 1026 pages) : illustrations, maps
9780141959740, 0141959746
1002924828
List of figures
Preface
Foreign Country:
Human prehistory
Homeric Greece
Hebrew bible
Roman Empire and early Christendom
Medieval knights
Early modern Europe
Honor in Europe and the early United States
20th century
Pacification process:
Logic of violence
Violence in human ancestors
Kinds of human societies
Rates of violence in state and nonstate societies
Civilization and its discontents
Civilizing Process:
European homicide decline
Explaining the European homicide decline
Violence and class
Violence around the world
Violence in these United States
Decivilization in the 1960s
Recivilization in the 1990s
Humanitarian Revolution:
Superstitious killing: human sacrifice, witchcraft, and blood libel
Superstitious killing: violence against blasphemers, heretics, and apostates
Cruel and unusual punishments
Capital punishment
Slavery
Despotism and political violence
Major war
Whence the humanitarian revolution?
Rise of empathy and the regard for human life
Republic of letters and enlightenment humanism
Civilization and enlightenment
Blood and soil
Long Peace:
Statistics and narratives
Was the 20th century really the worst?
Statistics Of Deadly Quarrels, Part 1: Timing of wars
Statistics Of Deadly Quarrels, Part 2: Magnitude of wars
Trajectory of great power war
Trajectory of European war
Hobbesian background and the ages of dynasties and religious
Three currents in the age of sovereignty
Counter-enlightenment ideologies and the age of nationalism
Humanism and totalitarianism in the age of ideology
Long Peace: Some numbers
Long Peace: Attitudes and events
Is the long peace a nuclear peace?
Is the long peace a democratic peace?
Is the long peace a liberal peace?
Is the long peace a Kantian peace?
New Peace:
Trajectory of war in the rest of the world
Trajectory of genocide
Trajectory of terrorism
Where angels fear to tread
Rights Revolutions:
Civil rights and the decline of lynching and racial pogroms
Women's rights and the decline of rape and battering
Children's rights and the decline of infanticide, spanking, child abuse, and bullying
Gay rights, the decline of gay-bashing, and the decriminalization of homosexuality
Animal rights and the decline of cruelty of animals
Whence the rights revolutions?
From history to psychology
Inner Demons:
Dark side
Moralization gap and the myth of pure evil
Organs of violence
Predation
Dominance
Revenge
Sadism
Ideology
Pure evil, inner demons, and the decline of violence
Better Angles:
Empathy
Self-control
Recent biological evolution?
Morality and taboo
Reason
On Angel's Wings:
Important but inconsistent
Pacifist's dilemma
Leviathan
Gentle commerce
Feminization
Expanding circle
Escalator of reason
Reflections
Notes
References Index
Originally published: New York: Viking; London: Allen Lane, 2011